Thoughts on Deafness
This post will not ring a lot of bells on Medium but none the less here it is. Each to there own little Universe. This was mine.
Two People (A Study in Contrast):
The first person appears calm andserene, is adept at making conversation, yet listens well and is considerate. Will not jump start or interrupt another; Enjoys musical concerts.
The second person is lacking in social skills; appears to be tense; doesn’t really say much but when he or she does speak, tends to be harder to understand, very direct and sometimes louder. Lacking in verbal skills and often getting into trouble by saying the wrong thing at the wrong time. The first person is blind. The second person is hearing impaired.
Second Person:
A glimpse on the other side of the wall. Being pre-lingually deafen myself which is different than becoming deaf or hard of hearing as you age. Which also can be a difficult time. In this other world that I grew up in the absents of the spoken word, the pre-lingually impaired do become very astute at reading lips and facial expressions. With lip reading, it is in a high state of awareness that a fleeting analysis must be made between partial sound and lip movement. When done in extended time it can be very fatiguing. Sometimes before the end of a sentence you get a clue as to a key word previously stated. While you are trying to reconstruct the previous statement the person is still talking. So, not only are you doing what was said before, but you must process what is being said now and at the same time you have to be ready with a response to keep the conversation going. Another habit in social contact which I still use today, was to open up a conversation with a question thus being in control of the subject matter I could then relied on my lip reading skills and partial hearing clues as mentioned above to fill in the blanks.
The Car Door
I can remember as a child whenever my father came home from work I could hear the car door slam shut and my older sister would bellow out to my mother “He is not deaf”. Little did we know that my deafness was centered mostly from the mid to high frequency sounds which is required for clarity of speech and understanding.
Tight Quarters
As the young lad above I also remember when living in the Norththumberland, N.H. within the town of Groveton there was a paper mill. We lived in a company block apartment of three room. (Yes five people) We had a console record player and radio combined which we used to gather around and listen to every Sunday night. On was Walter Winchell with the news and gossip, the Jack Benny and the Phil Harris shows.The only way I could hear these programs was to stretch out on floor next to the console with my ear firmly fixed on the speaker.
After Thoughts:
-Helen Keller who became deaf and blind at 19 month was ask the question, would you rather be deaf or blind? Her reply was “When your blind your missing out on things. When your deaf you are missing out on people.”
-The suffering that I endured when I was younger was not so much what I could not hear or understand, but in what I could. not say. (Not being clear enough to be understood) Being unable to hear was a discomfort. Not being able to talk clearly was totally frustrating. The only person that could understand me when I growing up was my sister Sally and may God rest her soul.
-Between the fatigue of lip reading, obstructive background noises from a hearing aid and the higher state of alertness, it was no wonder that we become worn out and tired at the end of the day.
-In the absents of the spoken word the deaf or hard of hearing are very astute at detecting feelings and emotions through facial expressions. This is especially true of the eyes. That perplexed, shifty, squinty, dilated look goes a long way in discerning, sincerity, interest, attraction and hostility.
First Job
After I graduated from High School in which I finished pretty much at the bottom of my class, I got a job working in a mail room of a major company. Often times I was down on myself. Unable to speak clearly and not being able to hear. At lunch one day I was with a co-worker and he saw my anguish and offered the following consolation. “We can not sometimes understand you and you can not understand us, so in a way it all balances out.” If there was ever anything to insult to my intelligence this would be the one.
Rise and Fall
I was always good at studying in the few college courses I took so when I undertook and passed a tough four part tests to become certified as a Inventory and Production Specialist (APIC) and it came to the attention of management. At the time the company that I worked for was threaten with lost of a major government contract due to lack of necessary controls concerning government property and I was asked by our Company President being certified, to help solve the issues by becoming the companies first Property Administer. I had total access to his office. With my mission completed and the contract secured, it went well for about a year or so until without “any advance warning” I was required unknowingly to conduct a victory tour with a high ranking military official along with several of our managers. Lacking in verbal skills and caught flat footed, I froze. One of the managers had to take over the tour. That same afternoon I was demoted and relieved of responsibility. A few years later during a Aerospace downsizing phase after 30 years, I was let go. My first part time jobs afterwards was cleaning out toilet bowls for a former co-worker that owned a cleaning company and was at one time a subordinate of mine. I know this sounds a bit like sour grapes but not really, it gave me a sense of relief from the responsibility from above and I was more than willing to play out the parts I was given. All in all after I was let go from my full time job, I was able able to receive disability payments along with a more secure and acceptable part time job at a local church that lasted 20 years. So in the end everything turned out to be all good. “All’s well that ends well”.
